--- title: In Rafah, We Fear Israel's Endgame description: As we await our fate and wonder if Israel forces us to flee yet again, our only hope is for President Biden to impose a ceasefire. canonical: https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/ author: Abdallah Abdallah Al-Haddad article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-02-29T16:35:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:40:03.614Z article:section: Ideas og:title: In Rafah, We Fear Israel's Endgame og:description: As we await our fate and wonder if Israel forces us to flee yet again, our only hope is that President Biden gets the courage to impose a ceasefire. og:url: https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt89d6fe633b735178/698a48f7e6e84ade062b1761/GettyImages-1998126177.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: In Rafah, We Fear Israel's Endgame twitter:description: As we await our fate and wonder if Israel forces us to flee yet again, our only hope is that President Biden gets the courage to impose a ceasefire. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt89d6fe633b735178/698a48f7e6e84ade062b1761/GettyImages-1998126177.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # In Rafah, We Fear Israel's Endgame > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=8d8cf39c-b7e3-41fd-b14f-aa4cd4f94fa7&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Netanyahu to Send Israeli Team to Washington to Discuss Biden's Concerns Over Rafah [Watch (HLS stream): Netanyahu to Send Israeli Team to Washington to Discuss Biden's Concerns Over Rafah](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/F7oQaRo5.m3u8) (3:10)  _Published 2024-03-18. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said._ by [Abdallah Abdallah Al-Haddad](https://time.com/author/abdallah-al-haddad/) ## Abdallah Abdallah Al-Haddad Feb 29, 2024 4:35 PM UTC Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. by [Abdallah Abdallah Al-Haddad](https://time.com/author/abdallah-al-haddad/) ## Abdallah Abdallah Al-Haddad Feb 29, 2024 4:35 PM UTC After months of pounding Gaza with one of the most lethal bombing campaigns in [history](https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-bombs-destruction-death-toll-scope-419488c511f83c85baea22458472a796), Israel is now threatening a [full-blown assault](https://time.com/6761623/why-rafah-is-a-turning-point-in-the-gaza-war/) on the southernmost town of Rafah, where nearly 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are seeking safety after being driven from their homes, including me and my family. As we await our fate and wonder where we will go if Israel forces us to flee yet again, or whether we will even survive another assault that leading rights groups have warned will be a [“bloodbath](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/aid-groups-warn-rafah-bloodbath-if-israel-advances-2024-02-09/),” President Joe Biden and other Western leaders hold our lives [in their hands](https://time.com/6696023/biden-gaza-israel-us/). Normally a small city next to Egypt, Rafah these days is extremely overcrowded, hosting the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people. The town is filled with tents and its houses are overflowing. Most of the homes in Rafah, including the one where we are sheltering, have a dozen families in them. All around us, people are starving, thirsty, and sick from disease because Israel continues to [block](https://time.com/6835166/human-rights-watch-israel-gaza-aid/) the entry of sufficient food, water, and medical supplies into Gaza. After being driven from our homes and witnessing our communities systematically destroyed by Israel, we have [nowhere left to run](https://time.com/6343516/southern-gaza-fleeing-safety-essay/) and fear Israel is planning to expel us out of Gaza [entirely into Egypt](https://time.com/6330904/palestinians-gaza-fear-permanent-expulsion/), as senior Israeli officials have been calling for for months. I am from the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, where I’ve lived most of my life, along with my father Omar, my brother Salim, and our families. As Israeli tanks and shelling closed in on us in November, we made the difficult decision, like hundreds of thousands of others, to leave. We moved three times within the city itself, each time taking with us a bag with our most essential life possessions, from infant formula to canned foods and our degrees. My laptop, now considered a luxury, stayed behind. Finally, when we ran out of options in Gaza City, we fled south in early December to Rafah, where Israel said we would find safety. We are bitter to have fled to a so-called “safe haven” only to again [face bombardment](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/12/rafahs-1m-refugees-fear-israeli-onslaught-after-night-of-bombardment). Traveling south was no less terrifying than staying in the north. On the road, soldiers forced us to walk single file, occasionally pulling someone, even children, out of the line and taking them behind a hill, after which we heard gunshots. My eight-year-old son Yahyabegged me to go with him if the soldier told him to go behind the hill. It was one of the worst moments of my life. I at times wished a missile would fall on us to relieve us from the horror. I gathered what little strength I had left and fabricated a lie, telling him that the army was summoning people to give them water. In Gaza, we don’t have the luxury of mourning. There is no respite between our sorrows. Each day, terrifying news passes by us, such as the death of a friend or the destruction of a nearby home. In early November, we learned of the killing of our cousin’s aunts through a chain of WhatsApp messages. We hear the news, mourn for a moment, then return to our tragedy, searching for water and food in our struggle to survive. But the knowledge that even if we survive the onslaught, our futures, our hopes, and our communities now lie in ruin lingers all around us. So many of our homes, our jobs, our friends, our neighbors, our belongings, our schools, our business, are all gone now. Displacement and destruction has left us with trauma, grief, and humiliation. **Read More:** [_From Gaza, Stories of Loss and Grief_](https://time.com/6326080/gaza-palestinians-grief-israel-hamas-war/) Above all, there is a pervasive sense of abandonment from the international community. It pains us to see so many Gazans killed by bombs and starvation while the world seems indifferent. It’s as if we are not human and we have no rights, not even the right to life. As Israel’s invasion of Rafah looms, with a deadline set for [Ramadan next month](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4476894-israel-deadline-rafah-invasion/), everyone here is caught between two awful feelings: fear of staying and dying or leaving and losing a loved one. But in the meantime, everyone in Gaza is equally desperate now. You see teachers and students, doctors and patients, and everyone else, all [standing in the same lines](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/gaza-hunger-photos-long-lines/) together for water. Lines are one of the few things in abundance in Gaza. There’s a line for bread, flour, sugar, meat, cooking gas, aid coupons, currency exchange. The list goes on. The duration of each line varies, with some lasting from early morning until sunset. This is just a glimpse of the hardships we are enduring. Even the youngest child in Gaza realizes that Israel’s war is not against Hamas, but against the Palestinian people [as a whole](https://www.reuters.com/world/un-experts-say-israels-strikes-gaza-amount-collective-punishment-2023-10-12/). This makes us struggle to keep faith in the belief that there is humanity to be found. Our only hope now is for the Biden Administration and other Western governments to use the considerable leverage they have over Israel, including [billions of dollars](https://time.com/6331133/israel-gaza-biden-military-support/) in military assistance, to impose a [ceasefire](https://time.com/6696636/us-backs-gaza-ceasefire-at-un/) and pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to allow sufficient aid to enter Gaza. If they don’t, I tremble at the thought of what is to come for me, my family, and every other Palestinian not just in Rafah but all of Gaza. ## Transcript Earlier today President Biden spoke with prime minister Netanyahu as you all have heard the two leaders to discuss the latest developments in Israel and Gaza and they spoke about the state of Israel's military operations. The president emphasized his bone deep commitment to ensuring the long-term security of Israel and he affirmed as he did in the State of the Union that Israel has a right to go after Hamas the perpetrators of the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust a military plan cannot succeed without an integrated humanitarian plan and political plan in the president has repeatedly made the point that continuing military operations need to be connected to a clear strategic endgame. President told the Prime Minister again today that we share the goal of defeating him us, but we just believe you need a coherent and sustainable strategy to make that happen. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed to Safe Haven and Roth or anywhere else but a major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis deep in the Anarchy in Gaza. And further isolate is real internationally more importantly the key goals. Israel wants to achieve and Rafa can be done by other meats on the call today President Biden ask the prime minister to send a senior interagency team composed of military intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington in the coming days to hear you as concerned about Israel's current proper planning and a layout an alternative approach that would Target key hummus elements in rafah and secure the Egypt Gaza border without a major ground invasion. Prime minister agreed that he would send a team. Obviously he has his own point of view on a Roth operation. But he agreed that he would send it to him to Washington to have this discussion and have this engagement and we look forward to those discussions. So from the president's perspective, we've arrived at a point where each side has been making clear to the other its perspective it's few and now we really need to get down to brass tacks and have the chance for a delegation from each side on an integrated basis everyone sitting around the same table talking through the way forward and from the US perspective. This is not a question of defeating Hamas. And anytime I hear an argument that says if you don't smash into dropping you can't defeat him off I say that is a straw man argument that there are ways for Israel to Prevail in this conflict to secure its long-term future to end the terror threat from Gaza and not smashing to rock that that's what we're going to present in this integrated way when this team comes we'll have it back and forth and will let you know how that unfolds. Pressing the Prime Minister also discussed the ongoing negotiations for an immediate cease-fire for several weeks in return for releasing hostage is currently being held by Hamas and other militants in Gaza. We would look to build on that ceasefire into something more enduring and use the space created by a cessation of hostilities to search humanitarian assistance at a vital moment. So far this deal has been more elusive than we would have hoped, but we will keep pressing because we regard this as an urgent priority. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/"},"headline":"In Rafah, We Fear Israel's Endgame","datePublished":"2024-02-29T16:35:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:40:03.614Z","description":"As we await our fate and wonder if Israel forces us to flee yet again, our only hope is that President Biden gets the courage to impose a ceasefire.","url":"https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/","keywords":["Israel-Hamas War","freelance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt89d6fe633b735178/698a48f7e6e84ade062b1761/GettyImages-1998126177.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Abdallah Abdallah Al-Haddad","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/abdallah-al-haddad/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt89d6fe633b735178/698a48f7e6e84ade062b1761/GettyImages-1998126177.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT","caption":"TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT","creditText":"Mohammed Abed—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/israel-hamas-war/","name":"Israel-Hamas War"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/","name":"In Rafah, We Fear Israel's Endgame"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Netanyahu to Send Israeli Team to Washington to Discuss Biden's Concerns Over Rafah","description":"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss with Biden administration officials a prospective Rafah operation, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/F7oQaRo5/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-03-18T20:50:35.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/F7oQaRo5.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/","duration":"PT3M10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6836301/gaza-rafah-essay/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```